New Album

I added the final album from India: India Album 6. Finally got through it...lots of pictures !

More from around Cebu City

I've taken to going for walks around the city. I get bored every once in a while so I head out with my camera to see if I can get some good shots.

Yesterday, I made it down to the Santo Nino Church downtown...another one of those spots that I've been to when I was last here. I didn't recognize much of it, apart from the statue of the baby Jesus with dark skin.



After the church, I wondered towards the Carbon Market. The Lonely Planet lists it as a place to check out, but I'd advise against it. It's dirty and smelly; interesting to see, but not exactly the safest place. I was pretty conscious of the people around me when I was walking through there. Here are a couple shots from there:





That looked like a kids pool table, but those guys were pretty serious about it. They were using playing cards as part of the game. Not sure exactly how, but I think each card represents a ball and when you turn up a card you have to sink the ball that it represents. I'm sure there was some money involved somehow.

And in the middle of all that, there was a basketball court too.

I'm not sure what it is, but I haven't been taking many pictures lately. I'm not really focused on the subject like I was in India. Maybe the security of being part of a group there helped me out. Walking around yesterday, I was trying to pay attention to my surroundings rather than relaxing and looking for nice shots. I'll try to get into a groove again...

New Album...

Added another //a href="http://new.photos.yahoo.com/rasfour/album/576460762353763476#page1" target="blank">album/a// from India. I have a couple more discs of stuff that I have to sort through, but hopefully I'll get around to it by the end of the week.

Yahoo Photos has a new look. It seems like they're trying to evolve it into more of a photo sharing/storage site. Right now you can upload your photos at full resolution, but only download them one at a time. Not really useful for online photo storage.

I've been shrinking the photo sizes down to make the upload time faster using the batch resizer from rw-designer.com. They have some other useful tools as well.

Quebec as a nation ???

I was flipping through some news sites this morning to discover that the house of commons passed a motion recognizing Quebec as a nation within Canada. I think it's a silly idea. Quebec is unique, but so is everywhere else in Canada. Newfoundland has its own unique culture and heritage...some would argue that it even has its own language that nobody else can understand. You can say the same thing about the praries and the west coast. Toronto by itself is unique as well.

There are some good points about this vote. //a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1164409810997&call_pageid=970599119419" target="blank">Chantal Hebert/a// and //a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1164456970860&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795" target="blank">C.E.S. Frank/a// talk about them.

I still think that Harper and the Cons are a bunch of weenies, but this looks like a very smart political move. It has no practical meaning though, it's pretty much just a play on the definition of the word "nation". Credit has to go to Michael Chong, Ken Dryden, and Gerrard Kennedy for speaking their minds on the topic.

New Old Look...

It only took a couple of comments for me to change the look of the blog back to one that's similar to the old style. I made some changes to the standard template design to one that looks a little more to my liking.

I'll keep looking for alternate designs though...if I find any that I like, I'll switch it up and ask for feed back again...

Thanks to Anonymous Rick and Andrea for the comments.

The CFFL

Jon's in the Cebu Flag Football League...He plays on the Pink Flamingos. Fruity name, but they're the defending champs 2 years running. Aimee plays on a girls team as well called the Alpha Hot Tees...but Aimee's away in Florida, haven't seen her play yet.

Here are some pics from yesterday's playoff action:









The last one is Jon making a nice grab. It's hard to take photos of the game with a litte compact camera...really need an SLR with a 300mm lens at the minimum.

The CFFL superbowl is next week !

Around Cebu

I was kind of bored on Thursday, so I decided to go for a long walk around town. I ended up walking from Jon's place in Mandaue (man-dah-way) all the way to Mactan Island with the goal of making it to the Lapu Lapu monument. The last time I was there was 20 years ago, so I wanted to check it out. All in all, I ended up walking around 10km. I didn't make it all the way to the monument because the sun was already about to set and I was wooped. I hired a taxi to get me there.

The views along the walk were nice especially these from the bridge:





The jeepney conductor on the last one got off and put a block behind the wheel of the car to stop it from rolling backwards then walked over to check out the view. I ended up walking past them about 4 times total...there was some traffic on the bridge.

Here are some shots of the Lapu Lapu monument after I finally got there.





Lapu Lapu is a national hero and was the first native of the islands to resist the spanish colonialization. The monument itself was nice, but different that I remembered it...I thought there was more of a beach area around the place, but it's pretty developed. Yet again, a place can change a lot in 20 years.

ClustrMaps

I also found and added the ClustrMaps feature in the side bar. It's supposed to show different hits from different parts of the world...the bigger the dot, the more hits it represents.

We'll see how it works in the coming weeks.

New look...

For some reason, I decided to upgrade to the new beta blogger version. I thought that I'd be able to keep the same look, but I didn't like the look of the upgraded version of the template.

So the old look is history...there's no turning back. This new version has more features in it that I may or may not use.

So yeah, please comment on the new look of the site. I'm still undecided about it, I may change it down the road.

A note on Cell phones...

For those of you who have travelled around and used cell phones abroad, you know that almost everywhere around the world cell phones work differently than in North America.

Here and in India anyway, you can switch cell companies by picking up a new sim card and keeping your phone. The phones and cell network operate separately and everything is much cheaper. The rates are really cheap and the deals that companies offer are increadibly cheap by NA standards. Here in the Philippines, you can get a deal for unlimited text and calls for 400 Pesos a month (around $10 CAD)...only catch is that you can only contact people on the same network. The deals are so cheap that a lot of people carry more than one phone, one for each network.

I'm getting the impression that people in NA are getting ripped off with the cell phones. We should be able to keep the same phones, but switch networks by getting new sim cards. In theory anyway, cell phones should be cheaper than land lines because the infrastructure is much easier and cheaper to set up. I agree that taxes and overhead costs are higher in NA so that the cell costs should be higher, but I'm not convinced that it should be as high as it is.

That's my 2 cents anyway...

New Album

Progressing slowly on adding pics to online albums. I added //a href="http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rasfour/album?.dir=cdd1scd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rasfour/my_photos">India Album 3/a// to the list.

I was working backwards before hence Album 4 showing up before.

More photos...

I added another album to the list in the links...//a href="http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rasfour/album?.dir=3ef6scd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rasfour/my_photos">India Album 4/a//. Don't ask me why I skipped the number 3...don't remember exactly the reasoning, but I can't change the album title, it's set.

I also added David and Karrie's site...they're a couple from Toronto. Really nice couple and great photographers too...they have some nice toys !

I met Mandy and Alastaire on the same tour as David and Karrie. They have their own blog going with some of their pictures.

Dumaguete

I took a ferry back to Dumaguete on Saturday. A nice short 1hr ride, but managed to meet a Canadian from Alberta named Kelly. His wife is from Cebu and they were travelling with their 18 month old son and travelling to different islands. Nice guy...has his own business drilling and blasting for oil and gas exploration.

I stayed at the Pura Vida Dive & Beach Resort in Dauin just outside the city of Dumaguete. Nice place, but the beach was dark and coars sand. I hung about the afternoon on the day I got there...just to relax some more and have a couple drinks. I rented another moped the next day and rode around the city. I didn't take many pictures of the place...a little hard to do while riding around. It's a university town so there's a lot of neat little places around. The university is called Silliman University...I wondered what the school mascot was, but never got around to asking.

Feel free to be creative and suggest some names by posting in the comments...I think the "Silliman University Silly Man" is an obvious one...you can use your photoshop skills to come up with a picture of what the mascot would look like. Email them to me and I'll post them on the site...

I didn't take many pictures around Dumaguete. I never really got off the moped and walked around...except to get some sunscreen and a bite to eat. The third day there, I decided to go do some snorkeling off of Apo island. It's a tiny place but with some nice coral reefs around it. I spent about 3 hours in the water.

Note:
Make sure you put sunscreen on the back of your knees when going snorkeling. I never really thought about it before...how often do you get sunburnt on the back of your knees ? Anyways, I was hurting yesterday, but it feels ok now. I'll just try and stay out of the sun for long time for the next couple of days.

Here's a picture from the ride back to Dumaguete from Apo:



And a picture of lizard hiding in one of the lights at the resort:



Back in Cebu for now...thinking about heading to Puerto Galera next.

Siquijor

I was going to be by myself for a few days. My cousins had some travelling/business to attend to. So I decided to go on a mini-trip at my uncle Geoff's recommendation.

Siquijor (pronounced like a woman you should avoid in Thailand...sicky-hoor) is a small island of the shores of the main island of Negros. The ferry system is pretty neat. I took a 4-hour ferry ride to Dumaguete and then another 1hr ride to Siquijor. I started really early in the morning...6:20am. Got a nice shot from the ferry deck:



The island itself is extremely laid back. It's famous for some voodoo magic and weird medicine, but I didn't really see any of that. Not much goes on there...pretty quiet. There is no night life to speak of. Everyone shuts down for the night at around 8pm. I rented a moped and rode around the island for a day. It's only around 70km to ride around the whole island. The Cambughayan falls are small, but swimming there was very refreshing.



They also have a bunch of old churches around. You can also go spelunking in a bunch of different caves. I heard it was really neat to go, but I decided against going...was feeling pretty lazy.

The beaches are nice...white sand that's easy to walk along. The slope of the beach was really shallow, so a lot of the beach gets exposed when the tide goes out.



The tiny blue crabs there are also neat to watch. They bury themselves really fast in the sand one you walk by. If you stay still long enough they start coming back out and look at you with their little beady eyes.




I stayed their for a couple of nights at the Kiwi Dive Resort. I met a nice older french couple when I got there, but they were on their way out so I was there by myself for the first night. Met some young brits the second night: Marie, Frazier, and Andy. Nice people...they were there to learn how to dive.

Cebu

I arrived in Cebu around noon today. My cousing Jon picked me up from the airport and showed me around town today. It's been nice and relaxing...we've been spending time just catching up.

I updated the site a bit with some minor edits and added a bunch of pictures. The new pictures start at the entry for shimla...if you scroll down far enough, you'll see the new ones.

I'll see about adding more photo albums tomorrow.

Off to the Philippines

I've enjoyed my experience here in India. The intrepid tours allowed me to see a lot of the country in a relatively short amount of time. After 6 weeks though, I'm happy to leave. All the vendors, beggars, and pushy richshaw drivers can take their toll on you. I'm also ready to go and relax on a nice beach in Cebu.

I have lots of pictures to put on the site, but that will have to wait for now.

The Lotus Temple and the Baha'i faith

The lotus temple is a nice white building in the shape of a lotus. Really interesting architecturally...cool and quiet inside. I like sitting there for a little while.

The Baha'i religion is faily new...about 160 years old. It started in the area around Tehran in Iran and spread through Turkey, North Africa, and various other parts. Nowadays you can find a Baha'i temple almost anywhere around the world. It's seems interesting, but I wonder why it hasn't caught on more. It includes teachings from almost every religion. Here's the what the pamphlet I got says:

Basic Principles are as folows:

• Oneness of Mankind


• Independant investigation of truth


• The common foundation of all religions


• The essential harmony of science and religion


• The equality of men and women


• Elimination of prejudice of all kinds


• Universal compulsory education


• Universal peace

Sounds wonderful ! I can't say for sure what it's all about, but it seems like it a new age type religion. You can read more about it here.

Back in Delhi again...

We had our last meal as group at breakfast. It turned out to be Kathy's birthday also, so we signed a card and gave her a box of Indian sweets. Pravin, poor guy, had to rush because he had to finish the paper work for our group and then lead another tour on the same day.

I didn't do much that day, just relaxed and had a beer or two. I ran into Andy, my roommate on the previous tour, at the hotel and we went out for dinner and a couple of drinks. We said goodbye to some people.

The next day was more of the same...the remainder of us had breakfast together and said goodbyes to Anthea and Reena. I saw Dave and Theresa later that evening.

The neighbourhood around the hotel is usually buzzing at night with the market area, but the last two nights it's been eerily quiet. There's some political unrest in the city with the authorities trying to close down shops and vendors that have sprung up in areas where they shouldn't have be. My understanding of the problem is that some extremely poor and incompetent municipal city planning is to blame. There hasn't been an organized effort to manage the city and now some parts of it are out of control in terms of shops and residences.

Today I managed to get up early in the morning and went to see more of Delhi. I went to the India Gate...a memorial for Indian soldiers. I also went to see the Lotus Temple...a centre for the Baha'i faith.

Amritsar

In the state of Punjab, Amritsar is predominantly a Sikh city and has the Golden Temple. Sikhism is another of India's many religions and historically, it's an offshoot of hinduism. It stems mainly from the teachings of Guru Nanak.

Sikhs follow a disciplined way of life...they don't cut their hair and wear turbans. There are 5 things that a Sikh must wear at all times:

1. a special Sikh comb


2. special Sikh underwear


3. an iron bracelet


4. a dagger


5. not sure about the 5th thing...I think that they shouldn't cut their hair

In theory, Sikhism is a very inclusive and tolerant religion. Like many other faiths, extremism can take hold and the result is some violence.

We went to the Golden Temple in the evening to see the holy book get put away for the night. It's a very involved ritualistic process that is neat to see. The temple it self really is golden...it's covered with cold leaf. The rest of the complex is made of white marbel. There is also a pool that surrounds the temple and people bathe in it as a purification thing.

Amritsar itself was pretty busy when we were there...the were celebrating the birthday of Guru Nanak...I was pertty beat so I sat and watched the start of Australia and the West Indies cricket semi-final match. In my time in India, I've learned to like watching cricket...it's an interesting game and somehow I end up watching for a few hours at a time.

Amritsar was the last stop on the tour...we rode yet another overnight train back to Delhi.

Orchard Hut

Orchard Hut is a nice secluded spot for trekkers and other tourists. It takes a lot of effort to get there, there are no direct roads or paths.

It's run by Mr. Dhami and his family as a business. The food was really good, the accomodations were very basic but nice. It felt like being at a very basic cottage...the were no showers so you had to bathe using a bucket. They had a neat little water heater that used a wood fire. They also had a little pool that a few of us decided to jump into at differnt times...really cold!!! Couldn't stay in it for more than a minute.

A palmist came in and read the palms of most of the people in the group. It was an emotional experience for some people, for me it was more of a learning experience. He told me about the basic areas of the palm and what the represent. The way the lines and wrinkles are located and their lengths tell you about the person. It seemed pretty neat and he was spot on about some of my past and personality traits...apperently the thumb can tell you a lot about the person it's attached to.

Other than that, it was a really nice place to sit and relax for three days.

The trek, Khajjiar, and Chamba Valley

We started the trek early morning from a spot called Lakarmandi. Basically we walked down one mountain, had lunch by a river, and then hiked up another one. It took us about 6hrs to go about 20km. Pretty decent pace. The area is part of the southern himalayan belt of mountains.

Some photos from the hike:







Khajjiar is billed as the Indian Switzerland. It's another spot in India that you would not expect to see. Very scenic and very green a cool. Rob and I went zorbing...the slope wasn't very steep and the balls weren't that inflated. We had two guys helping to roll us along so it wasn't that extreme of an experience, but it was cool.



The hotel had a ping pong table. We got a mini tournament happenning with Rob, Pravin (the tour leader), and I. Pravin turned out to be a pretty good player...I'd say we were pretty even in wins/losses. Rob put up a good fight and got his fair share. Rob and I ended up playing for about 4hrs until past midnight...I was teaching the finer points of the game and he started getting pretty good. If the ball hadn't flown out the window, we probably would have been there for another couple of hours.

The next morning we set out down the mountain into the Chamba Valley area. The downhill was mostly on paved roads...I found it harder than the previous day's hiking, mainly because it was tough on my knees. I managed to survive though. We stopped for a quick lunch and headed off to catch the local bus.

Chaos ensued:
Rob decided to stop and pet some puppies. Dave somehow got roped into taking a picture of someone's wife who was very shy and didn't come out. I was watching what both of them were doing. Meanwhile, the rest of the group had got on the local bus...more light packed into the local bus. The two guides stayed behind to see what the three of us were doing. Long story short, we arrived at our destination by means of a commandeered car, 2 very packed buses, some timely phonecalls, and a ton of very close and touching interaction with the local people...especially the bus conductor.



We hiked up the side of yet another mountain to finally arrive at Orchard Hut. The dinner that night was filled with a lot of laughter as we recollected the chaos of the day.

Dalhousie

Dalhousie is a quiet mountain town named after another influential British guy...I don't recall exactly who he was, but there's been so many of them. The town itself is nice and quiet. It's a destination for Indian tourists. We didn't see many other foreign toursits.

The hotel we stayed in was pretty crummy. The rooms were damp, the towels they gave us were wet, and cleanliness was an issue. To top that, a bus load of Indian tourists got up at around 4am and made an incredible amount of noise. It sounded like about 5 guys were standing outside the room arguing with each other and horching and spitting...not pleasant. We were supposed to get a good night's rest because our trek started the next day.

Not much else to tell you about Dalhousie...

A little about Buddhism...

There are different varieties of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is one, southeast asian Buddhism is found in Thailand and surrounding areas, the Indian variety can be fount in northern India and in Sri Lanka.

The Buddha himself seems to be a half man, half mythical figure. His name was Siddhartha Gautama and was born as a rich man. His father tried to sheild him from the realities of life by creating a utopian existance for him. At some point, Siddhartha decided to leave the palaces and went out into the world to experience suffering. Through meditation for 49 days under a Bodhi tree , he achieved enlightenment and discovered the root of suffering. Here's an excerpt from the book "Sacred Symbols of Buddhism" about what he understood:


For Enlightenment, which brings salvation, the Buddha laid out the Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Paths. The Four Noble Truths are constructed on the logic of syllogism with the proposition or premise - the thesis - :

1. That suffering is cused by worldly bonds;


2. That its origin is linked to Samsara, the cycle of human existence, caused by desire such as lust, possession, and happiness;


3. That suffering must be eliminated by the destruction of desire through the elimination of ignorance;


4. And that the elimination of ignorance, the ultimate cause of human misery, must be made through the Eightfold Paths which leads to Enlightenment.

The Eightfold Paths recommend the following:

1. Right understanding


2. Right attitude


3. Right speech


4. Right action


5. Right conduct


6. Right effort


7. Right attention or mindfulness


8. Right meditation

There is a lot more to Buddhism than this, but it should give you an idea of what the buddha taught. For more on Buddhism, read here.

Dharamsala

Dharamsala is the home of the exiled Dalai Lama of Tibet. The three days we spent there were a nice exposure to Tibetan food, culture, and Buddhism. The surround area is very scenic...situated in the mountains. It's also a good place to get a workout just walking around !

The Tibetan food is mostly vegetarian and my take is that it involves mostly soups, stews, and dumplings. The steamed momos are awesome...especially with some chilly and soy sauce. The thukpa soup is really good too...very wholesome...good for cold weather. Yes, it got pretty chilly at times...had to bring the toque out.

I heard it was cold so I brought some long johns and the toque, but I didn't think that I'd get to use them. The long johns are still sitting at the bottom of my pack, but I've used the toque a few times.

My take on Buddhism was that it was a very practical religion with it's own scriptures and holy books. We saw some very elaborate paintings about Buddhist mythology...tibetan mythology in any case. There's a lot more to the religion than one would think...lots of mythology and symbolism.

It's been a while ago now so the details are a little sketchy, but here's the basic run down:

The hotel we stayed in was just up the hill from Dharamsala in an area called Macleodganj named after a british guy who had some influence in the area...don't know what exactly, I never paid attention to the story and missed the details. The place was nice and the food was really good.

We went to the Buddhist temple up at Macleodganj to check out the monks debating metaphysics and theology. It's a pretty rowdy debate. One monk sits down and poses a question. The other stands and formulates an answer or an argument and then caps the final point by slapping his hands together in front of the seated monk's face. with about 30 or so monks split off in pairs it got pretty loud. I took some neat pictures there. Here's one of the debating:


Here's Rob trying telepathy with his camera:


And one at the temple's prayer wheels:


One morning there, Liz, Linda, and I hiked up to Bhagsu Falls to have a look. The hike itself was nice, but the falls were modest. Maybe a 20 meter drop and a relatively small amount of water. Some indian tourists were dipping in the water...crazy...the water was really cold. Liz and Linda were like superstars walking around, everyone wanted to take their picture with them...especially groups of young guys.

In the afternoon, we went down to Dharamsala to see the Karmapa. I didn't know it at the time, but seeing the Karmapa is pretty close to meeting te Dalai Lama himself. I'd never heard of the guy before or knew much about what we were doing there, but some people had come a long ways just to see him. Some tibetan people were around me and they started to get really excited and started mumbling some chants and sayings when he came out. We went in line and got blessed by the Karmapa and he gave everyone a red string with a knot on it that's supposed to contain a prayer from him. It's a shame really, I wish I knew more about the man and the place before I got there so it would have more significance for me. Nonetheless, I'll remember the experience for a while.

The last day I spent wandering around town...some of us tried to get an tibetan astrology reading...apparently it's a really involved process that you need to know your time of birth. An the person spends a night figuring stuff out and then gets back to you the next day. We didn't have that kind of time so it never happened. I went to the local Tibetan museum to see some of the history. The Chinese have treated Tibetans badly, without a doubt. Somehow though, I didn't have that much empathy for their cause...they've established a home in the area around Dharamsala and the tibetan business and religion are thriving there so I had a hard time viewing them as refugees. Also, from what I saw, they were treated badly, but I think the Palestinians and a lot of people in Africa and South America have it much worse.

Mandi

Mandi (sounds like Bundy) is a nice little town. I don't recall exactly, but I think the hotel we stayed in was an old holiday house for british colonail people...or it could have been more of a retirement home. It's hard to keep track...the days really blend into each other. In any case, it was a really nice spot with a quiet and peacfull courtyard. The service and food were great, but the beer was really terrible...I think they had an old stock of a bad beer to begin with.

Mandi is a stocking point for the fruit merchants around the area. The bring the fruit in from the different farms, stock them, and redistribute them to other areas. They're also famouse for making preserves and jams. I didn't have any fruit or jam there...did't really run across anything interesting.

We walked around town and checked out a couple of temples. There is a neat little cloth market where you can buy material and then take it to a tailor to have something made. The prices were pretty decent from what I heard...I'm not that big of a shopper so I didn't really look closely.

Some of us started wandering around the other areas around town. A nice man stopped us and gave us an impromptu tour of some of the older and unique hindu temples in the town. He figured that he'd feel good about showing some tourists around and also build up his karma by showing the temples to people...really nice guy, unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word he said. But Reena speaks a little hindi and she was able to translate for us.

The next day, we headed into Dharamsala.